Farming soybeans and corn to feed livestock, if fed to people instead, can feed 11 billion people, that's more than the current population, but since we feed livestock for slaughter to feed western dieters, we instead have 2.5 billion starving people. Also, clearing land for livestock related activity accounts for 90% of Amazon rainforest destruction, as well as dead zones in our cations waterways and the Gulf of Mexico. Also, according to the UN, methane from livestock for slaughter accounts for 30 - 51 % (depending on which study), of greenhouse gas effect and since methane precipitates out of the atmosphere in less than a decade, we could actually reverse global warming quickly, (as opposed to cutting CO which if we all stopped burning fossil fuels today, it would be 100 years before we saw a tick in the drop of CO2 levels. Western dieters by cutting meat and dairy and processed foods would add 17 years to their lives and also eliminate 15 years of chronic disease suffering (NCD's), as well. For example according to leading diabetes expert Neil Barnard, Type II diabetes is rapidly 94.6 % reversable, people on insulin go off it simply by eating Whole Food Plant Based...but on TV we are sold foods that cause NCD's and prescriptions to manage life with chronic diseases instead of simply reversing them with WFPB. See Dr. Michael Greger at nutritionfacts.org, Dr. Esselstyn, director of Cleveland Clinic's Cardiac Wellness unit's book "Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease," or the many doctors in the video "What the Health," on Netflix or buy the DVD as well.
